First and last international

First and last international
February 25th, 2018
The passing of the 2nd international was long ago,
and yet the marxist framework (that might have led to its failure) still persists. A new upgrade is needed for a ‘last international’. Part of the problem was the expectation that the working class would be revolutionary but the onset of the first world war demonstrated the limits of that hope, although we might well blame the politicians rather than the working class. We have created a kind of ‘dialectic’ of the universal and the working class with a critique of the narrow limits of the working class focus: the working class on a global scale remains a key component but in the US something strange has happened. Social engineering from the right has crated a monstrosity as we see in the issue of Trump’s ‘base’. That is not the same as the working class, no doubt…But we should reconsider the whole range of issues and ask why the working class should be given preference over everyone else: it has led to a confusion on the left and has stalled activism. The working class isn’t revolutionary. But it might be, with the a renewed discourse that is relevant to our current situation.
Resource: The rise and fall of the Second International | SocialistWorker.org